WiFi Finder

Locate wireless services by a specific address, city, state, country, airport, or zip code.

Get Connected Now

RSS Feeds

Get our latest content via convenient RSS feeds.

See All RSS Feeds

Become a PCW Member

Join the community and start enjoying the benefits:

Get tech advice from thousands of PC World Members
Rate and recommend the latest tech products
Share your thoughts in blog and article comments
Get free excerpts and exclusive discounts on Super Guides

Signing up is free and easy.

Finale 2009 Music Notation Software Ships

Peter Cohen, Macworld.com

With HP wireless printers, you could have printed this from any room in the house. Live wirelessly. Print wirelessly.

MakeMusic has announced that it is shipping Finale 2009, a new version of its music notation software for Mac OS X and Windows. Finale is priced at US$600; upgrades from previous releases and special pricing is available.

Finale lets you enter notes using MIDI-based musical instruments like electronic keyboards, or using your mouse. It can create accompaniments with support for linked parts, repeats and more. It also features an "Exercise Wizard" that can help music educators to teach composition. Finale includes more than 300 Garritan instrument sounds, the ability to record or import vocal and instrumental tracks and much more.

New in Finale 2009 is streamlined workflow interface that makes it easier to create and enter music, move and edit what you've written. The Garritan Personal Orchestra instrument samples are new, and the new "Aria Player" has been integrated into Final 2009 as well. SmartMusic -- Finale's accompaniment generator -- has been expanded, and more than 100 instrument sounds are included from Tapspace Virtual Drumline, marching and concert percussion software instruments. You can also simultaneously view and edit as many pages as you want to view on your monitor.

Other changes in Finale 2009 include full support for VST and Audio Unit-based instruments. You can specify which plug-ins load, and Finale now checks plug-ins for compatibility. Improvements have also been made to engraver slurs, Human Playback, FinaleScript 2.0 and MusicXML support.

System requirements call for a G4 or better (including Intel), Mac OS X 10.4 or later, DVD-ROM, 512MB RAM, 512MB hard disk space (2GB needed for all VST/AU sounds included).